Rebab
The rebab (
Variants
There are chiefly three main types:
A long-necked bowed variety that often has a spike at the bottom to rest on the ground (see first image to the right); thus this is called a spike fiddle in certain areas. Some of the instruments developing from this variant have vestigial spikes.
A short-necked double-chested or "boat-shaped" variant; plucked versions like the Maghreb rebab and the kabuli rebab (sometimes referred to as the robab or rubab) also exist.
Besides the spike fiddle variant, a variant with a pear-shaped body, quite similar to the Byzantine lyra and the Cretan lyra, also exists. This latter variant travelled to western Europe in the 11th century,[2] and became the rebec. This rabāb is the ancestor of many European bowed instruments, including the rebec and the lyra,[3] though not of those bowed instruments in the lyre family such as the crwth, jouhikko, talharpa and gue.
This article will only concentrate on the spike-fiddle rebab, which usually consists of a small, usually rounded body, the front of which is covered in a membrane such as
The rebab, though valued for its voice-like tone, has a very limited range (a little over an octave), and was gradually replaced throughout much of the Arab world by the violin and kemenche. The Iraqi version of the instrument (jawza or joza) has four strings.
Construction
The rebab is used in a wide variety of musical ensembles and genres, corresponding with its wide distribution, and is built and played somewhat differently in different areas. Following the principle of construction in Iran,
History
According to Richard Wallaschek, bowed rebab was developed under Islamic culture.
"Of instruments they possess only the rababa, (a kind of guitar,) the ney, (a species of clarinet,) and the tambour, or tambourine."
It is called "joza" in Iraq, named after the sound box material made of a coconut shell. There is also a bowed instrument in Persian music named
For a famous Iranian singer and rebab player see
Southeast Asia
In the
The rebab does not have to conform exactly to the scale of the other gamelan instruments and can be played in relatively free time, finishing its phrases after the beat of the gong ageng (the big gong that "rules" the ensemble, see: colotomy). The rebab also frequently plays the buka when it is part of the ensemble.[8]
In
See also
References
- ^ The origins of the violin - the rebab, BBC
- ^ "rabab (musical instrument) - Encyclopædia Britannica". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
- Encyclopædia Britannica Online, retrieved 2009-02-20
- ^ Wallaschek, Richard (1893). Primitive Music: An Inquiry Into the Origin and Development of Music, Songs, Instruments, Dances, and Pantomimes of Savage Races. Longmans, Green, and Company.
- ^ Music in Mekka The Harmonicon, [Vol. VII, No. 12] (December 1829): 300.
- ISBN 978-1-7998-3361-1.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-588582-1.
- ^ Neil Sorrell. A Guide to the Gamelan. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. Pp. 97–98.
- ^ a b Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 151–153.
Sources
- Margaret J. Kartomi: On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press, 1990
External links
- Turkish Rebab Master Ibrahim Metin Ugur
- Nay-Nava the encyclopedia of persian music instruments
- Rebab
- The Rebab
- Arabic rababa photo
- nuke.liuteriaetnica.it
- FERNWOOD, an American music group that uses a Rebab.
- Matthaios Tsahouridis